FROM A SMALL ISLAND // epilogue

Goodbye England, goodbye blog. 

PARIS

I feel like I've been all over the place these past few months and that's because I HAVE. This blog is winding down, and with that I'm scrambling to put together my last few posts. Luckily, this is the last of the travel spots that has been hanging over my head, and now feels like it was ages ago, considering this happened before my jaunt around Scotland.

We spent a week in Paris in a lovely, tiny flat in Menilmontant. We used Velib to bike around the city, and managed to cover quite a lot of territory. We went to almost all the major museums, ate some delicious food, had some great wine, and entirely too much cheese. The sun came out and warmed us as we read by the Seine and drank wine in the parks (do I sound #abroad enough for you?).

FROM A SMALL ISLAND // 10

Been really falling behind with all this traveling that I've been doing. Here's what I've been up to these past two weeks. I'll get my last few posts up soon!

VENICE & ROME ("DOES THE VATICAN HAVE WIFI?")

I'm trying to pinpoint what made Venice so great, and what I think it really comes down to is that it was it was our first time in months being in a summer climate. The weather in England affected me more than I thought it would, and there is no feeling more freeing than stepping outside in sandals. I really recommend it.

We were pretty much all on the same page once we arrived: prosecco, pizza, pasta, repeat. In between, we visited museums and took strolls through all the winding streets, stopping for gelato every couple of feet.

I had heard that Venice was going to be unbearably touristy, but it ended up being probably one of the more relaxing cities we visited. Rome was a different story.

AMSTERDAM (LAMBSTERDAM, HAMSTERDAM, JAMSTERDAM ETC.)

 

Welcome to my new favorite place in the entire world. I can't put into words how I felt about this city (What do you want to be, Kate? A writer?) but I can only explain it as the feeling you get when you're visiting colleges and you know you've found the one for you. 

Back at La Souqueto we were having a conversation about whether or not we ever wanted to live abroad in the future. We all resolutely said yes, but I couldn't specify a place. I feel like after a childhood and a year of study, I can maybe cross England off the list (although I'll always come back for QI and Cadbury). At that point I hadn't really seen very many other countries to think about. But after just two days in Amsterdam, I was doing that thing you do when you're bored where you look at apartments on Craigslist (or maybe that's just a bad habit Carolyn's got me into). I can't say I found any in my $35-a-month budget (which I just spelled as "budjet" thank you all day paper writing) (have I done enough of these yet?) (let's move on)

Where were we? Oh right. I really like Amsterdam. We had frites and mayonnaise and GUYS I drank BEER and I think I drink BEER now. We did a lot of canal-strolling and bagel eating and went to Anne Frank's house and wouldn't let Jacob try to find Justin Bieber's note in the guestbook and we went to the Van Gogh museum and my ticket had the almond flower print on it and I was like that's MY print how did they know and ugh so many thoughts so little words actually functioning in my head. 

On our last full day it was really sunny and we were walking around and people were just leaning out the windows of their apartments and sitting on the stoops of their steps all overlooking the canals. It was a city with no pretension, no image it was trying to force on you. It's like all the people with functioning adult jobs who like to bike and wear really well put together outfits all fell into the most beautiful city in Europe and didn't even question it. AND I WANT TO BE ONE OF THEM, dangnabbit. 

LA SOUQUETO CHAMBRES D'HOTES (MIREPEISSET, FRANCE)

I will always feel forever lucky for these three days I got to spend with good friends in the south of France. La Souqueto, run by family friends from when I used to live in England, is a B&B situated just by the Canal du Midi in a Medieval French village. It was the first stop on our trip, and so absolutely beautiful and perfect that we kept joking about canceling the rest and just curling up here for the remainder of the month.

FROM A SMALL ISLAND // 9

ON TRAVELING

This has been the most insane, exhausting, frustrating, and completely amazing three weeks. I have more in-depth posts coming on all the different places, but I thought I'd write something to say hey, and to give me something to do in what seems like the longest next few weeks in the world. By the end of the trip, I wanted nothing more than to be in my bed on my laptop, watching Netflix. But now that I'm here, I'm feeling restless and anxious and have fallen back into the same state of mind I'm in any time I'm sitting in Exeter with nothing to do. I don't really like it in Exeter. I don't know how much that's come through on here. What I really wanted out of this year-long experience, I got in this past month. The stuff that surrounded it was stressful and hurtful and often made me question whether or not I made the right decision. But then I remember all the absolutely wonderful and crazy and beautiful things that this program has given me the chance to do, and I think I'm okay with all the not-so-fun stuff.

But all that's for another post. This is just a teaser for what's to come on this blog, as I grind through essays and prepare for the last few hurtles before I can get on the plane back home.

HOW TO: TRAVEL

I had several titles for this, like, "How To Travel With Only A Backpack" or "How To Travel For Three Weeks" but really this post is just a condensed master-list of all the things I've learned about traveling as a student abroad. I'm super hungry, so I'm going to write the rest of this after I've made pasta.

LADY DINAH'S CAT EMPORIUM

 Welcome to the most important post I have ever written. I knew about Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium before I even went abroad (I came in just after the donation period), and it's been on my list before I even made a list. I remember a few months ago, when it wasn't open yet and the opening date hadn't been announced, I reluctantly resigned myself to having to go home without experiencing it.

And then I was riding the Stansted Expressed to go to Sweden.

I was trying to snooze on the table because it was six in the morning or something ridiculous, and I heard a girl sitting at the table across from mine exclaim "Oh! The cat cafe is open!" and I SHOT RIGHT UP.

I booked my reservations sitting at a Starbucks in the airport, and managed to grab a date when my Mom and sister were visiting London.

Okay backstory over, now onto the important stuff.

FROM A SMALL ISLAND // 8

DIY TWIN DUVET COVER

Over the summer, when I was eager to start blogging but hadn't left the country yet, I put together a bunch of DIY posts that promptly got lost in my drafts. To fill the void between now and my month-long trip around Europe (oh right, that's happening), I'll be posting some of these blogs to avoid the radio silence that's becoming all too common on this blog (because all I've done of note recently is clean my room and start watching Bob's Burgers). Enjoy!

Because I'm trying to be quirky and fun and whatever, one of my goals this year was to have everything in my room be handmade (I'm currently writing this post in May, almost a full four months before I'll be in Exeter, so when I speak in past tense it's because I'm, what they call, lying. Hello future Kate (Ed: hi)). I started with making my own duvet cover. The only tutorials for duvet covers seem to be for infants. If you're a mom lookin' for a quick and simple baby duvet tutorial, this isn't where you wanna be. I'd suggest looking here, which is what I based this tutorial on.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

• sewing machine & thread
• 12 yards of 44" fabric
• snap kit
• scissors, pins, a duvet, etc.

FROM A SMALL ISLAND // 7

)

CORNWALL

 

 

Abby and Carolyn are gonna be mad at me for writing this instead of going to see The Room with them, but this weekend took a lot out of me in more ways than one (not sure what that's supposed to mean??) and I really do have a lot of work I'm just really bad at starting it.

STOCKHOLM

This was the tiniest of all trips, but we booked in on a whim and showed up without a single idea of what we were going to do here, and that ended up making it pretty, as the Swedes say, shveet (they do not say this).

PHOTO AN HOUR

Burst of morning sunlight after a terrible rainy streak. 

 Morning rituals.

 Morning rituals part II.

 Post coming soon on our new favorite coffee place (no, not Caffe Nero you nerd).

 Brain food.

 Brain suck.

 Things got manic.

 So we rewarded ourselves. 

This is how most nights have been ending, recently.

JANE AUSTEN'S HOUSE MUSEUM

Woop woop, bucket list. This actually ended up being a horrible no good very bad day, but this was a lil shining light before the shitstorm. 

OH COMELY MAGAZINE

I'm writing this during the times I have to pause and wait for the latest episode of Girls to load while eating a Chocolate Frog, which I'll admit is not ideal. But I've had this post rolling around in my head for a while so I thought I'd get it out while I was thinking about it.

Oh Comely is one of those things that I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do about when I go back. It's probably my favorite magazine, and even here it's hard to find. I discovered it how I discover most things: on Tumblr, wasting my life and potential. But this magazine is one of those few things that gives me faith in print media again. The writing is thoughtful, a mix of stories, interviews, features, and pictures. The models are real and untouched, and you can tell that the staff had fun writing it.

I've always read it on long train trips because the only place I've found it is at the WH Smith at the Exeter train station. The first time, I was on my own, the second time, I read bits aloud to friends as we thundered towards London. It's just pleasant. It makes me happy.

Okay, Girls is probably ready now. Back to the Chocolate Frog.

ps. this blog is kinda slow now, but big things are coming soon, just you wait (because I can't).

FROM A SMALL ISLAND // 6

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

Abby, Carolyn, and I have worked out our hypothetical life in London. Abby works at the Charles Dickens Museum, I work at Persephone Books, and Carolyn works here, at The Breakfast Club.

PERSEPHONE BOOKS

 

There are a few things that I've just had innate gut feelings about in a really obnoxious wont-stop-talking-about-it way (example), and after stumbling upon their website, Persephone Books was one of them.

I recognized the books immediately from my mother's bookshelf back at home, and once I learned what they were about, I couldn't imagine why I hadn't been obsessed with them before (it's more likely that my mom told me about all this but I did the yeah-uh huh-cool thing and didn't process any of it....xoxo mom). A more detailed look into Persephone Books can be found here, but the gist of it is they take under appreciated women authors from the past and re/publish them so they can get the attention they deserve.

Look below to see what I got! Yaaaaaaay for recklessly spending my stipend.

AN ODE TO LAS IGUANAS

 

I asked Abby and Carolyn to give me some quotes about our favorite restaurant, Las Iguanas:

• "satisfied"
• "uplifted"
• "wholesome"
• "not a place to go when horribly hungover"
• "enchanting"
• "perfectly spiced"
• "hot sauce available but not necessary"
• now they're talking about art projects wtf you guyssss

There's an acrostic poem in there somewhere, but for now let's just look at pretty pictures.

WINE AND LITERATURE: A TALK AND TASTING

This has been a suuuuuuper slow first week that I think I slept at least 60% of, but last night we got a chance to celebrate our triumphant return with a wine tasting in Topsham. I don't mean to brag, but I'm a preeeetty heavy connoisseur of wines less than seven dollars, so it was nice to eat meat and cheese and pizza while checking out how the other half lives. If you want my hastily scribbled notes based on a complete ignorance of fine wine, keep reading.